Traffic Solutions (Atlanta, Lovejoy, Clayton: transfer, live, law)

[backfist]

Being born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm all too familiar with rush hour traffic. And if everyone who didn't live 10 minutes from the City was resigned to 3 hours on the road--each way--then nobody'd go to work.

So maybe some of you optimists out there can share your alternative solutions for coping with the daily grinds of commuting. Granted, MARTA only goes so far, but I'm wondering about bus service that's OTP; Amtrak; van pools; car pools; toll roads, etc.

Thoughts?

[xxman777]

Backfist, I am all about alternative modes of transportation. Unfortunately, Georgia residents are not. Georgia residents method to cope with the traffic is to move farther out (eliminating day to day traffic) and then complaining about the traffic.

Looking at the suggestions which you have put forth, some work has been done in each area, but no final solutions. Bus service OTP is fairly expansive in Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton counties, but they have poor connections to Marta and each other. There also isn’t much coordination between the agencies so if you want to transfer between systems you have to do the research yourself.

Commuter rail should be coming, a line to Lovejoy, on the south side has been approved and work should begin shortly, and another line to Athens is proposed but it will be a lot of work to get it implemented. The state of Georgia recently passed a law that says and new commuter rail lines have to be approved by the state legislature. More proof that Georgia doesn’t like mass transit.

Van pools and car pools are great, and in-town freeways have HOV lanes but these are generally grass roots projects and aren’t being used on a large scale.

Toll roads are also very hard to implement in Georgia. Only a totally new toll road will really work to limit congestion in Georgia. Another great law here is the one which says only new lanes can be tolled (no existing free lanes can be tolled). This prevents that state from putting tolls on 75, 85 or 400 and truly making those who are making the traffic so bad pay for it.

[backfist]

All great points, xxman. Like most other states, metro Atlantans--at least the powers that be--believe that if they don't acknowledge the growth, then they won't have to plan for it.

It's like a father watching his kid make his own mistakes. He hates to see it, but the kid won't let dad help him make the right decision.